Mullvad founder gave millions to extremist far right party (mastodon.social)
54 points by vrganj 2 hours ago
mortarion an hour ago
Örebropartiet is not a extremist far-right party. All their policies is extreme far-left except immigration.
gpm an hour ago
This sounds very much far right and not left at all to me
> Markus Allard takes inspiration from marxist ideology[32] and unites the "productive" classes of society against the "Transferiat", with the "Transferiat" being a term coined by Allard to describe the classes of society that lives off of transfers that are a net negative for society such as those who, despite having an ability to work, live off of social welfare benefits, as well as those who work "made-up services"[33] that the party deems serve no societal function, such as bureaucrats, consultants, public sector communications specialists, strategists and HR-specialists.
It's practically a copy and paste of the ideology behind "doge".
irthomasthomas 15 minutes ago
Sounds like a branch of the Technocracy movement which Musks grandfather helped found.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joshua_N._Haldeman
"The technocracy movement proposed replacing partisan politicians and business people with scientists and engineers who had the technical expertise to manage the economy"
ShinyLeftPad an hour ago
By your logic USSR was far right.
gpm an hour ago
mortarion an hour ago
Marxism, communism and socialism are all extreme far-left ideologies.
Being anti-immigration doesn't automatically swing the party to the right. As written on Wikipedia, "left-conservative" is probably the best label.
The Swedish far-left loves to, for instance, brand the governing party in Denmark as far-right, but they are actually also left-conservative.
It is possible (shocker) to be liberal and progressive, whilst also being pro-assimilation, pro-deportation, anti-immigration.
gpm an hour ago
rationalist 42 minutes ago
creaturemachine 42 minutes ago
vrganj an hour ago
Would you say they are... national socialists then?
And they're not just anti-immigration, they're pro-ethnical cleansing of people already living there.
fsmedberg an hour ago
Try radical populist left-economic-leaning nationalists
elzbardico an hour ago
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anonym29 an hour ago
>they're pro-ethnical cleansing of people already living there
source?
gpm an hour ago
whalesalad an hour ago
Wild. I spent about 3 months living in Örebro while on contract with a company based there.
lightbulbish an hour ago
I'm Swedish, but never heard of Örebropartiet before. I tried looking into their website and it doesn't say a lot.
Translated from Swedish wikipedia: --- Örebropartiet was founded by Markus Allard in the spring of 2014, when he was recently expelled from the Left Party and the Young Left. [...] Among the party's main issues are reduced politicians' salaries, reduced bureaucracy, civil servant responsibility, assimilation policy and the repatriation of people who do not adapt. ---
I think it is very reasonable to demand that people try to integrate when coming to a new country - learn the language, get into the culture. As a Swedish person I think this is missing from our integration politics, which is an often talked about topic in the last years.
In the end this is a political question and sadly instead of engaging in dialogue the reaction to these questions feels like it most often leads to polarization and division. Inclusion means also including people with different beliefs and respecting their opinions, even if we don't share them. Through understanding comes empathy.
Can recommend "The Righteous Mind" by moral psychologist Jonathan Haidt who discusses this in a book. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Righteous_Mind
Fun fact: we get a dopamine release when taking an opposing stance and then seeing (subjective) proof of our stance. It requires self-discipline and fighting your impulses to avoid polarization.
hackinthebochs 44 minutes ago
I'm not sure why I should care that an ethnic X is supporting a party that defends a homeland mainly for ethnic X's. It's always taken as an axiom by leftists that immigration is an unconditional good, but never actually defended. Why should stable homogenous countries take on unbounded immigration from countries with dissimilar cultures and suffer all the ills that come along with it? Why are white countries moving to preserve their culture, ethnicities, identities supposed to be unconscionable? Can anyone offer a full-throated defense of these claims?
tastyface 23 minutes ago
I live in a "white" country and I like my nonwhite neighbors, some immigrant, some nth-generation, even ones who mostly socialize within their ethnic/cultural enclaves. I believe they belong here as much as I do. I don't want to give any money to racists who want to expunge them for some perceived ethnic transgressions. These parties are one step removed from extolling the virtues of the glorious Aryan race, and we all know where that leads.
hackinthebochs 11 minutes ago
>I believe they belong here as much as I do.
This sentiment is just so utterly foreign to me that I can't comprehend how someone could rationally think this way. I mean, I'm a black man whose ancestors have lived in America since the slave ships, and I easily recognize that some people are more American than others. And Americans only have like 1% of the cultural and ethnic identity that most European nations have. Why are you blind to the importance of the deep historical roots that bind a nation together? Why do you think the very force (namely kinship ties) that has driven humanity forward for the last hundred thousand years has, in the blink of an eye, become irrelevant?
rationalist 37 minutes ago
> It's always taken as an axiom by leftists that immigration is an unconditional good, but never actually defended.
I'm not sure that is correct. Before Trump, "left" politicians (in the U.S.) campaigned on controlling immigration and deporting illegal immigrants.
hackinthebochs 24 minutes ago
Not in my experience, at least not at the national level. It's been said that Obama deported more illegals than anyone that came before. But Democrats couldn't run on that record because it was toxic to the progressives.
undefined 41 minutes ago
jaykru an hour ago
The party in question: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%96rebro_Party. Doesn't sound extremist far-right to me. Many of its positions would be considered center-left or even far left in much of the world.
mrtksn an hour ago
I am surprised that people are surprised, all these services are by people for people who are marginalized. Therefore, they are either far-right or far-left. When its business, its more likely to be a far-right since they are more business-oriented. The far left folks usually make a repo and give it away or try to organize some collective effort.
greggoB an hour ago
> for people who are marginalized. Therefore, they are either far-right or far-left.
There are many types of marginalised groups, and many other reasons to want to use VPNs. Putting everything on a left-right political axis seems more than a tad reductive.
mrtksn an hour ago
Sure but far left and far right is a crude default way to generalize, the left folks will be especially annoyed by this but its still useful when the specifics don't matter.
freediddy an hour ago
Did anyone actually look into the "far-right" party that this purports to be?
The Örebro Party (Swedish: Örebropartiet, ÖP) is a local populist political party in Örebro, Sweden, led by Markus Allard. It holds seats in the Örebro municipal and regional assemblies, focusing on local populist policies such as reducing politicians' salaries, stricter migration, and free dental care.
Sweden has undergone a horrible transformation in the last several years where gang warfare and especially bombings have skyrocketed. Most of the new gang violence in the last several years is from migrants from North Africa and the Middle East, after Sweden implemented a generous immigration policy.
https://nct-cbnw.com/an-explosion-a-day-in-sweden-what-is-go...
There's nothing to indicate that this party is "far right" at all. It's a populist-based party but the stance on immigration is definitely linearly correlated to the violence that was brought in by immigration. Lowering politicians' salaries and free dental care doesn't sound very far right to me.
fsmedberg an hour ago
Swede here. That's not even close to accurate. Örebropartiet is not extremist, but I would absolutely label them radical populist left-economic-leaning nationalists. Please do some research and make up your own mind. They're a tiny local party active in Örebro municipality where their founder and leader loudly points out clearly wasteful use of government funds, or more or less corrupt decisions made by leading party figures in other parties on local matters. The party leader is known for ridiculing competing parties party members on debates.
Where the Örebropartiet (Örebro Party) usually are called extremist is in questions regarding immigration. They are of the opinion that people that move to Sweden should not integrate but also assimilate, and quickly, find a job. For some people, this might sound extreme, but I would argue that more than half of the Swedish population (and its parties) nowadays share this view, similar to how Japanese people and society broadly want people that move their to assimilate.
Capricorn2481 an hour ago
> similar to how Japanese people and society broadly want people that move their to assimilate
And it's super racist there too, I can assure you. My father in law is Korean but lived in Japan his whole life. There's no way to describe what he experienced except racism. People just hated him for being Korean.
I have no respect for people that concern troll about some vague cultural purity to disguise their prejudices.
ShinyLeftPad an hour ago
A friend of mine who is a non Japanese Asian lived in Japan and when asked said there's no racism. There's mild cases but if you are careful to follow the customs and speak the language, you are generally accepted as a Japanese in daily life.
Capricorn2481 an hour ago
cindyllm 41 minutes ago
tastyface an hour ago
All white nationalist parties describe themselves in these neutral terms, of course. I've yet to find a hardline anti-immigration party that is not also virulently racist.
whatever4789 an hour ago
Thanks for letting me know. I'll be sure to add Mullvad to my whitelist and support them. Anyone else I should support?
ar_lan an hour ago
This is a bizarre thread.
People are surprised that a privacy-oriented businessman is right-wing is very strange.
"Millions" in the title is also misleading in this context - it's millions in Swedish Kronor, which is roughly $500K USD. A lot, but the title seems intentionally misleading.
I've also never really understood the cycle of boycotting things because you don't like how an individual spends their own money. Almost every company will employ people who have values you severely disagree with, and put money toward those causes. And turning to Proton as the alternative is... a choice?
znpy an hour ago
I love this post and the comments because it shows that on the left side of the political spectrum your actual opinions are essentially irrelevant: if you’re not 100% aligned you’re called far right.
Capricorn2481 42 minutes ago
Yes very far left.
"They should also be deported, even if they were born in Sweden, because they don't have a natural connection to Sweden. They are not Swedes. I am prepared to walk over corpses here, and that is what separates me from these other damn politicians." [1]
tastyface 13 minutes ago
I hate how right wingers are constantly trying to normalize viscous, abhorrent rhetoric like this. Ironically, they often claim to be religious...
If any of my peers spoke like this, I'd cut them out of my life in an instant.
mhitza an hour ago
Any of the Swedes in here can corroborate the claims in the article about this right wing group? Especially about the extreme anti-immigration statements and put that in full translation and context?
Also what this group leader has done in Örebro to contextualize this quote
> ”I hope they will do similar things on the national level as in Örebro”, writes Daniel Berntsson to Flamman.
ninjin an hour ago
Tried to find something from the party itself, but found nothing on their homepage other than that they plan to publish a party programme "gradually, starting some time during the summer of 2026".
fsmedberg an hour ago
The claims in the social media post is pure bullshit. The party is a tiny (read: one person elected) radical populist left-economic-leaning nationalists. They have gained popularity for pointing out wasteful use of Örebro's municipalities resources, and their leader's fondness of lengthy ridiculing other parties politicians in lengthy debates, that he often publish on Instagram and YouTube.
mhitza an hour ago
Thank you for providing context.
Are his public stances on immigration precisely stated as remigration, or does he describe a thing such as remigration without explicitly naming it as such?
About his quote from wikipedia "They will also be forced to leave, even if they are born in Sweden, because they have no natural connection to Sweden. They are not Swedish." which links to this video tweet https://x.com/AllardKlipp/status/2060109271635771457 can you give full context/translation?
elzbardico an hour ago
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colesantiago 2 hours ago
You should uninstall Mullvad, like right now and tell your friends and anyone that is using it to uninstall it too.
Mullvad is now a funnel into funding right wing extremist political parties.
Other services that use Mullvad:
Mozilla VPN
Netbird (questionably considering Mullvad support) (https://github.com/netbirdio/netbird/issues/1138)
Obscura VPN
Malwarebytes Privacy VPN
Tailscale
ProxyStore
Webhallen & Inet
Do not buy Mullvad VPN scratch cards in stores too.
I am probably going to switch to Proton VPN in light of this, but welcome more ethical and principled alternatives.
techhut an hour ago
NetBird doesn't use Mullvad
colesantiago 30 minutes ago
They are considering which is enough for me to not use Netbird.
pixel_popping an hour ago
You'd have the same mindset if they were funding left wing extremists right?
SideburnsOfDoom an hour ago
Don't be silly, everyone knows that left wing extremists are broke, and have no funds.
SideburnsOfDoom an hour ago
I am now open to suggestions for a good VPM that isn't Mulvad. Or Proton.
Why not Proton: https://pivot-to-ai.com/2024/07/25/proton-mail-adds-a-bitcoi...
vrganj 2 hours ago
colesantiago 2 hours ago
:/
Perhaps the alternative is to self host, but my friends can't do that.
It is about time we compile a list of VPNs to avoid.
basisword an hour ago
What's going on? Proton faced a similar scandal recently. I think in their case sponsored a video by a far right vlogger. After that I saw people recommending Mullvad as an alternative.
pixel_popping an hour ago
Maybe people should stop mixing the personal life of founders with the businesses they are running? People are able to separate concerns, but apparently there is this relatively recent obsession with mixing the 2.
I could run a deceptive insurance company while running another ultra ethical non-profit open-source project, both are compatible and aren't mixed, personal life has nothing to do with business.
People are talking as if not everyone is good & bad at the same time, it's disappointing, if I were to leak individually the "deepest secrets" of every single person running a business, then all of them would deserve to be outed based on this mindset, many (maybe majority) people have stolen, committed crimes, deceptive things... in their life, you can be both good & bad, and I bet Mullvad founders are doing way more good than bad.
Cenk an hour ago
Surely you can see the difference between “the personal life of founders” and “the founder of this company is by far the largest donor to a party in favour of ethnic cleansing and thus I don’t want to buy his products”?
drdexebtjl an hour ago
What?
The reason he has those millions to give is because of the money he made from Mullvad, no?
If he separates that, I’ll happily separate my judgement as well.
addedGone 39 minutes ago
you are saying that if that founder earned from scam websites while running Mullvad, then it would have been fine to sponsor that association with the crime money, but not Mullvad money, yes?
vrganj an hour ago
There's "personal life" and then theres being 75% of the funding of a party calling for ethnic cleansing...
pixel_popping an hour ago
You have sources about Ethnic cleansing or you are just talking about immigration which has nothing to do with ethnicity? Of course criminal immigrants that just cross the border should be deported, that's common-sense. You would really cross Japanese border right now and genuinely think you aren't committing a serious crime?
Can you give some sources regarding the Ethnic cleansing?
vrganj an hour ago
ndegruchy 2 hours ago
Disappointing if true. I can't read the original article[1], but the translation seems to agree. I've paid for Mullvad for _years_. Looks like I'll be taking my money elsewhere.
[1]: https://www.flamman.se/techprofil-ger-miljoner-till-orebropa...
fsmedberg an hour ago
Article by a news media outlet that is considered very far left (communist). Try finding the same claim or description in any national Swedish media. You won't.
XorNot an hour ago
I have Mullvad to avoid age check gateways, not super anonymity. I'll absolutely be taking my business elsewhere.
SCdF 2 hours ago
Additional context here is that they donated 75% of *all donations* to that party last year. 3x everyone else combined.
And that party is not just "kind of right wing", they believe in large scale "remigration" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remigration), which, to save you clicking the link, means "a far-right concept referring to the ethnic cleansing via mass deportation of non-white minority populations, especially immigrants and sometimes including native-born citizens, to their place of racial ancestry".
There is a wealth of difference between when random companies throw a few thousand at whatever the leading parties are, and this.
10xDev an hour ago
As economies shrink and jobs become scarce, we may reach pre-ww2 order.
zymhan an hour ago
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10xDev an hour ago
elzbardico an hour ago
Do you live in Sweden, do you know the context of the mass migration it ocurred there? the social economic effects?
addedGone an hour ago
Apparently it's not criminal to stay illegally in a country, they are delusional.
nisegami an hour ago
It's funny how remigration never involves sending white folk back to europe.
JuniperMesos 43 minutes ago
That's because there are no nonwhite countries in the world that white people immigrate to en masse because living conditions there are better than in their own countries. There's a real racial asymmetry in the world between whites and nonwhites in terms of building countries people wish to live in.
10xDev 29 minutes ago
nisegami 17 minutes ago
anonym29 an hour ago
>ethnic cleansing via mass deportation
"ethnic cleansing" is an emotionally charged term that conjures genocide in the popular imagination. It is not a good descriptive term for what can rightly be described as regressive or ultra-nationalistic migration policy.
focusgroup0 an hour ago
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Jysix an hour ago
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ktosobcy an hour ago
I'm still amused that so many people got brainwashed into thinking that VPNs give privacy :D